The most promising sectors for the application of the circular economy model in Serbia are agriculture, processing industry, production of electronic devices and packaging, shows the analysis of the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) and the German Organization for International Cooperation (GIZ).
Every year, 12 million tons of waste are generated in Serbia, of which 10 million tons are waste from mining, energy and construction waste. Although these quantities could be significantly reduced, the greatest potential for better treatment has a different type of waste – municipal, which we produce about 2.2 million tons a year. If those two tons were managed properly, they could, instead of being dumped, end up as pet food, green energy, and compost.
The problem of inadequate waste treatment and its solution is indicated by the Program for the introduction of the circular economy until 2023, which was proposed by NALED with the support of GIZ DKTI. However, for the model to become a practice, changes in the law, stronger infrastructure and raising awareness of companies about the benefits of this concept are needed.
The applied principle of circular economy in practice would look like this: produce optimally – use adequately – separate properly – recycle and return to production. However, in our country, the linear concept still dominates, according to which waste is not recycled, but produced, used and disposed of in landfills.
Sectors with the most “circular” potentials
The NALED and German Development Cooperation Program “Waste Management in the Context of Climate Change (DKTI)”, implemented by the German GIZ, also advocates amending the law in this area in order to encourage the development of a circular concept.
“Amendments to the law are necessary, but, on the other hand, it is a great challenge to implement these regulations, primarily due to the lack of appropriate infrastructure. In order for the amendments to the law to make sense, we must have special containers for waste separation and sanitary landfills. Also, we now have only 10 sanitary landfills and more than 120 municipal ones that do not meet even the minimum standards. It is estimated that there are more than 3,500 illegal landfills in Serbia. We must urgently resolve this, in order to, as a candidate country for EU membership, get as close as possible to their directives in this area,” said Slobodan Krstovic from NALED.
In the meantime, he says, it is necessary to focus on the sectors that the analysis has identified as those with the greatest potential for applying the concept of circular economy, and to make them an example to others on how to best use waste. These are agriculture, production of packaging, primarily glass, and electronic and electrical waste.
Food is not a waste
There is a total of 4,571 municipal waste generated by the economy in Serbia. At the same time, 331 companies are registered that reuse waste and 32 that dispose of it. When it comes to biodegradable waste, its use is perhaps the best example of a circular economy, which is not implemented in our country to a sufficient extent, or in the right way, says Bojan Gligic, regional manager of EsoTron, for B&F.
“The reality is that 99 percent of food waste, which we generate 250,000 tons a year in Serbia, ends up in landfills, where all the amount of such waste is converted into methane, carbon dioxide and other dangerous gases. There is no need to explain in particular that carbon dioxide is the most significant cause of climate change, that is, global warming, while endangering the environment and human health. If we were to introduce food waste into the circular flow, by separating it from other waste and processing it, the benefits would be huge,” Gligic emphasizes.
Our caterers annually procure 123,000 tons of food, of which 20% are immediately discarded because they are bones, shells or crusts, and another 15% remain in plates, according to NALED. Methane and carbon dioxide are released into the air from the waste generated in catering facilities and end up in landfills. Gligic says that it is ideal to separate food from other waste, then process it and in that way create energy, which is further used in a production process where waste is created again and so on in a circle.
If we applied this principle, we could make biodiesel, biogas and green energy from that waste. For example, electricity produced from renewable sources has little impact on the environment, and has a lot of room for development.
“It is an ideal example of a circular economy. When the economy realizes the value of the circular principle of waste management, at the same time we will get a healthier environment and corporate responsibility of the companies we have been striving for decades,” Gligic is convinced.
When does electronics become waste?
Electrical and electronic devices in Serbia “live” on average for about 10 years, after which they become waste. The development of technology has brought the trend that desktop computers live for 5-10 years, mobile phones are changed to five, or three years.
The report of NALED and GIZ, which refers to the data of the Environmental Protection Agency, states that in 2018, more than 19 million pieces of various products from this category, weighing more than 12,600 tons, were placed on the market in Serbia. – small household appliances, IT equipment, lighting, tools, toys, medical aids… Only the production of various cables and wires in the same year reached a weight of almost 48 thousand tons. That year, 32,615 tons of electrical and electronic waste were processed.
“In this segment, recycling would enable the reuse of valuable materials that are installed in devices. Circular production would improve the design of products to be made of environmentally friendly materials that do not pollute, and whose parts can be easily repaired, replaced or recycled. For example, the average TV contains approximately six percent metal and 50 percent glass,” explains Slobodan Krstovic and adds that one of the problems that can now be noticed is the lack of a partner.
Every citizen consumes 50 kilograms of packaging a year
Every inhabitant of Serbia consumes about 50 kilograms of all types of packaging per year, of which a fifth is plastic packaging, which is more than 70,000 tons of plastic packaging per year. Materials used for packaging, which is mostly used once, in addition to plastic, there are also glass, cardboard, aluminum, etc.
“Special collection of recyclable materials is the key to a successful circular economy, but it requires infrastructure. Bearing in mind that Serbia has more than 200 companies engaged in the production and recycling of packaging, be it plastics, aluminum, glass, as well as companies that produce production tools, it is clear that the potential for the development of the circular economy is great in this part,” says Krstovic.
Mining and energy are the biggest polluters
However, from the point of view of environmental protection, the most important thing is to suppress the waste generated by companies in the mining and energy sector. According to the research, those two sectors are by far the biggest polluters, because more than 90% of untreated waste arrives in nature.
When the analysis was done, only in mining, the share of waste in the total amount was 79 percent, which is an increase of 46.1 percent for the observed six-year period. In second place is energy, which accounts for 12.2 percent of total waste in Serbia. In the six-year period, this sector recorded a slight drop of one percent in the amount of waste.
When the line is drawn, other sectors have a significantly smaller share, so that the processing industry and households still have more than one percent of the share, the analysis of NALED and GIZ showed.
“Green” jobs for SMEs
The creation of new jobs in the SME sector, in activities that are directly or indirectly related to the concept of circular economy, could, according to a rough estimate in the analysis of NALED and GIZ, employ another 30,000 workers, and at the same time increase efficiency and earnings of the firm. In Europe, the principle of circular economy has been developing for several years, and according to Eurostat data, four million new jobs have been created in five years, an additional value of 155 billion euros has been created, and an increase of private investments of 18 billion has been recorded. Additionally, the electricity savings were equal to the consumption of a country like Italy, BiF reports.
